The nation in brief

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“If Sen. McCain and Sen. Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me.”

President Barack Obama,

lashing out at senior Republican senators over their criticism of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice in the

aftermath of the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya Article, 2A

Guilt admitted in $50 million theft

ROCKFORD, Ill. - A longtime bookkeeper pleaded guilty Wednesday over allegations she embezzled more than $50 million from a small city in Illinois to fund a lavish lifestyle that included a nationally known horse-breeding operation.

Rita Crundwell, the former comptroller of Dixon, pleaded guilty to a charge of wire fraud in federal court in Rockford. She was allowed to remain free until her Feb. 14 sentencing hearing.

Prosecutors said she siphoned money into a secret bank account while overseeing the city’s finances.

Crundwell’s guilty plea in the federal case enables the U.S. Marshals Service to start selling off millions of dollars of assets still in her name. The marshals already auctioned dozens of Crundwell’s horses and other property, raising $7.4 million.

Confessor in ’79 vanishing is charged

NEW YORK - A man authorities say confessed to the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz from his New York City neighborhood has been formally charged with murder and kidnapping.

The indictment against Pedro Hernandez, 51, of Maple Shade, N.J., was made public Wednesday. Hernandez is due today in state court in Manhattan on second-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping charges

Defense attorney Harvey Feinstein contends that Hernandez is mentally ill and prone to hallucinations, and that his confession can’t be trusted.

Prosecutors countered that an exhaustive post-arrest investigation found enough evidence to seek an indictment and proceed to trial.

Etan’s disappearance led to an intensive search and spawned a movement to publicize cases of missing children.

His body has never been found.

Hearing put off for Colorado suspect

CENTENNIAL, Colo. - A court hearing for the man charged in the Colorado movie theater killings has been postponed after his attorneys said Wednesday that he had been taken to a hospital for unspecified reasons.

Court documents filed Wednesday gave no details of James Holmes’ condition, other than that it “renders him unable to be present in court for [today’s] hearing.”

The hearing had been scheduled to discuss pretrial motions and media requests for information under state openrecords laws.

At a hearing Wednesday on defense attorneys’ request to delay the court date, defense attorney Tamara Brady said Holmes was taken to a hospital Tuesday. She didn’t say where or offer details on why, saying attorneys don’t want to disclose privileged medical or psychiatric information.

Arapahoe County District Judge William Sylvester said that was sufficient information for him and postponed today’s hearing until Dec. 10.

The 24-year-old Holmes is charged with killing 12 people and injuring at least 58 by opening fire in a crowded theater on July 20. He’s being held without bail and hasn’t entered a plea.

FDA seeks more power, gets a grilling

WASHINGTON - The head of the Food and Drug Administration asked Congress on Wednesday for more authority to police pharmacies like the one that triggered a deadly meningitis outbreak. Lawmakers, however, questioned why the agency didn’t do more with its existing powers.

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg called for new laws to clarify her agency’s authority to crack down on companies like the New England Compounding Center, which distributed contaminated pain injections that sickened more than 460 Americans, causing 32 deaths.

Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee spent most of the first hearing on the outbreak questioning state and federal regulators about why they didn’t act sooner against the company.

A timeline assembled by the committee’s Republican staff showed that the FDA and the Massachusetts board of pharmacy investigated the pharmacy more than a dozen times in the past decade.

Hamburg told lawmakers that the problems uncovered in inspections were “very serious,” but that the agency was obligated to defer to Massachusetts authorities.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 11/15/2012

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